A short story is telling about an american art-director, who became obsessed with Instagram and created a full project of his profile.

In October 2012 an american art-director Stephen McMennamy discovered for himself a new service, which is now world-famous and known even to the kids — Instagram. Starting from that time Stephen’s life, like the lives of millions of people, has started to circulate around this application. But with a little peculiarity. The thing is that me, most likely you, and millions of others share photos of ourselves (aka Selfies), our meals, our kids or our vacations. We don’t bother ourselves editing these and the minimal manipulations using the editing panel of the same Instagram is more than enough. For another part of Instagramers this product has become a working area. They sell, they buy, they work… And you keep rejecting their annoying friend requests… Or you accept them to have more followers… Well that is not what matters at this exact moment. And what really matters right now is a special niche, separate part of people, for whom Instagram is not a random photostream anymore. There are people in the world who turn their Instagram profile into a real photo gallery. And that is when we start talking about Stephen McMenamy, for he is one of these Instagram-artists.

Having learned about Instagram he decided to start exploring the world of photography more thoroughly and a little later this hobby has developed into a project that Steve keeps creating up to now. The author himself refers to his project as Combophotos.

Needless to say that the idea itself is not new. Even our Magazine has recently told about a couple of different versions of mixed media (or combined photography) here and here. At the first sight it might seem that Stephen spends hours and hours editing his photos in Photoshop. But in reality the creation of these works is a thousand times an easier process than endless manipulations with photo editors. McMennamy simply makes two separate shots and and sticks them together. “It’s really just from looking around and seeing what things are out in the world might make for an interesting fit or what would make for a nice contrast once combined” — says Stephen in one of his interviews.

Paying attention at details, Steve already has his unique and recognizable style: simple background that differs by one or two tones on each of usually two photos and a very keen set of attributes. Stephen openly claims that the majority of his pictures are taken with an iPhone and it’s been a short time since he purchased a professional camera to create better and brighter photos. Sometimes he also uses drones for aerial photos. So it’s easy to conclude that some of Stephen’s photos are spontaneous, taken at the right moment with the right lights — right here, right now, as we say — and the other part is completely staged and acted out after he suddenly sees an interesting view.

Long story short, Steve is a great example of how one can develop himself and create a good additional business having a good smartphone and a little imagination. The thing is that Stephen’s Instagram is not only a nice gallery to follow. It is a well-developing project that also gives him some profit, since every combophoto can be purchased and used for printing on paper or cloth. Plus, the project has become so popular, that once it was told about by CNN themselves.